We must require voter ID to ensure that our elections are honest. Times have changed; we have lost the once-universal American system of ethical beliefs. Progressives say that we have survived without photo voter IDs. True, but the threats to electoral integrity are magnified. The video of Patrick Moran – son of Rep. Jim Moran – schooling an undercover reporter on how to commit voter fraud is proof that the privileged political elites are more brazen in their corruption than we would have believed.

Radio host Brian Wilson’s “Washington on the Mall” program on the D.C. area WMAL station was inundated with calls from angry local voters. Patrick Murray, the GOP candidate for Virginia’s 8th Congressional District – and Jim Moran’s opponent – called into the program and weighed in on the incident: “It was disgusting to me. … With Jim Moran you are never surprised, only disappointed.”

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was also on Wilson’s program Thursday morning. Said the AG: “It is very ugly, he (Patrick Moran) should have and did resign from his father’s campaign. … We ultimately rely on the morality and the integrity of our citizens. … Patrick Moran failed that test.” In Virginia the attorney general cannot investigate such fraud allegations without a unanimous request from the State Board of Elections or a request from a local commonwealth’s attorney or a local electoral board.

When the ethical foundations of a community are rotting the government has to shore up the foundations and make up for the dearth of honor and integrity. Voter ID fulfills the responsibility of the government to step in and ensure that the citizens continue to control their own political destiny. It is an extra but necessary step.

The progressive straw man that minority voters – and by thinly veiled implication, mostly black Americans – will be disenfranchised is malarkey, as Vice President Biden would say. The progressives are desperate, and charges that “Republicans are scaring the black voters away from the polls” hollow.

I called in to speak with Brian Wilson and discuss the charge that voter ID would harm black Americans. Black Americans can and do vote. Photo voter ID will not change that. Like other Americans, we live in communities where adults require photo ID for routine transactions. Black Americans, whether in the suburbs or in the large urban centers, acquire photo ID to prove they are over 18 and may therefore purchase cigarettes. Black Americans procure ID to enter nightclubs. Black Americans procure ID to buy alcohol. This may come as a shock to leftists, but we have been know to rent a car or two and even board an airplane – and we don’t even have to ride in the back the aircraft. We are Americans, this is our country, and we understand how it works: Adults need ID. Black Americans acquire ID for the same reasons other American do, and some black Americans refuse to use ID for the same reasons as other Americans: They’ve got something to hide.

The implication that black Americans cannot participate in an economy that requires photo ID for such routine transactions is insulting. So is the alternative conclusion of the leftist talking points: that black Americans largely participate in some strange secret black underground economy where they are not carded for these transactions and that somehow leftists know about this and care so much for black Americans that they want to ensure they can still vote. Ridiculous.

The fact Patrick Moran advocated the use of utility bills is to commit voter fraud is not surprising to me. When I was a personal banker we were trained to use utility bills as a secondary ID to open accounts for persons who used Latin American consular IDs and did not have U.S. government ID or foreign passports, an apt description of the condition of illegal aliens. My refusal to open such accounts is why I quit the bank.

Black Americans will not be disenfranchised. Non-citizens should not vote, and progressives should not rig the system. The “enlightened” 8th District needs a new U.S. representative.